October 2009 Trip Report

Wow it's been just short of 4 years since our last trip, and with Kel out of work we decided we would do a domestic trip this fall rather than going overseas. Looking over the trip report from December 2005, I appeared to be a bit bitter about the crowds. This trip I made yet another effort to guess when the park would be less crowded, knowing full well that the 50th aniversary party was really to blame for the 2005 crowds. However no matter what I try, it seems like the park will never be back down to the crowd levels I enjoyed 10 years ago and earlier. Disney has gotten too good at drawing them in, even during a recession and in the off-season. So this time I chose 3 weekdays, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 2 weeks after the Halloween stuff went up. I was hoping all the Annual Passholders would have rushed to the park the day the Space Mtn Overlay and fireworks started (they did) and that they'd be bored with them by the time we went. Not so much. I also chose to go 6 months before the huge new World Of Color Show is set to open as well as a year before a lot of other stuff is scheduled to open in DCA. This was in the hopes that a lot of people would put off their trips until those were open. That probably worked OK but not with the APs.

How bad were the crowds? I'm being a baby of course because I want the park all to myself. They really were not all that bad until 90 minutes before the fireworks, when all the DFs parked their asses in the hub and on Main Street to wait for a 12 minute show. Otherwise the lines were OK. The stroller situation has gotten WAY out of hand (I still have NO comprehension when it comes to folks bringing kids so young they need strollers to the park. They'll never remember the trip, they annoy everyone around them, and they don't really enjoy it all that much (that I could see... unless they LIKE having melt-downs...) Anyway, back to the begining.

Pre-planning was mellow. We got $49 each way air tix, SFO-to-SNA on Virgin America, about 2 months beofre we left. Bought the 3-Day Park Hoppers the day before the price went up (Yay me) from Mousesavers.com for $174 each (plus a 3.75 convenience fee). They gave me a voucher to print and turn in at the main ticket booth to swap for tickets. Man prices have gone up!. Did that on the same day we got the Air tix. I planned on getting rooms at the Desert Inn, which is right across the street from the Resort entrance and they are pretty cheap. Kel, however, did some poking around and found us a hotel that is 4 times better, at a better price, and only about a half mile further away. The Hotel Menage, right in the crotch between Harbor, Ball and I5. Got an $89/night rate. 6 weeks before the trip I made 2 meal reservations. Last trip we were blind-sided by the Blue Bayou being booked up for weeks before we got there. I was used to WDW meal booking but had never had a problem getting a table by getting a reservation first thing in the morning. This time I booked as early as I was allowed. We got a 1:00pm Lunch Res for Blue Bayou on day 1 and a 1:00 on day 2 res for the Wine Country Trattoria in DCA. We'd wing the rest. So we were ready to go.

Sunday October 4th 2009
I ran the San Jose Rock & Roll Half Marathon with my running partner Carissa, finishing in 2:22:11. A personal record! This race was the reason for the Disneyland trip actually. Sort of a reward. Not a very well thought out reward.... I was in HELLA pain for the next 2 days. Should have planned it for a week after the race. So that night Kel's Mom. Brother, Adri & Matt all went out to dinner. Kel's Mom was in the area visiting, and Mike was gonna house-sit for us. They both spent the night. I barely slept. My knees (IT Band Syndrome) were killing me and I was going to Disneyland in the morning!

Monday October 5th 2009
Flight was scheduled for 1:45 (1:15 boarding). Aran met us at the house at 10:00. Just in time for the Night-Cat to bring in a deadish Squirrel! Kel dealt with that while I closed up the house. Kel's Mom was picked up by her friends and the rest of us piled into the PT and drove to Concord BART. I got an airport parking pass ($5/day, print at home, put in dash) and parked in the permit area. We caught the 10:57 SFO train and Mike rode with us all the way to MacArthur. 5-car train got very full for a bit there. Got to SFO at about 12:15. We had printed our boarding passes at home so just needed to check our 2 bags. That took all of 5 minutes (no line). Aran went out for a smoke, then we sped through security with no probs. We were at gate 1 so had a drink and some soup at the restaurant right there, which was pretty crowded and slow. Kel had a $12.75 Mimosa. That's 75 cents MORE than Phairs charges for a BOTTOMLESS Mimosa. Gotta love airports. Popped down to our gate just as they were letting the last group (us) on. Kel got the window so she could take a billion out-the-window shots. I ordered us 3 Absinthes then watched videos. Short flight. Landed just before 3:00 in Santa Ana. Luggage seemed to take forever. Got a cab with no wait or hassle. Took us straight to the hotel in about 20 minutes (no traffic in the HOV lanes) for $38+tip. MUCH better than the shuttles that stop at 12 other hotels and charge $30 a head.

Checked in to the Menage Hotel. The lobby is huge and really nice. There's a restaurant off to the side, K'Ya, which was fantastic. We ate dinner there twice and breakfast all 3 mornings. Our room was on the top floor (5th) and faced the backside of Disneyland and I5. We could see the TDA building, the "Roundhouse" and the hills of ToonTown among other cool stuff. The noise level however was horrendous! The freeway put off a roar so loud we could barely hear each other talk. Inside our room the insulation was good enough to dampen it 90% but it was still too loud to sleep without earplugs. No biggie. We got the wifi working after a call down to the front desk for the password. Checked in on Facebook, then, after minimal unpacking, headed down to the Tiki Bar next to the pool for a few drinks. Awesome bar, great bartender. The weather was nice (high 70s). We hung out there for 4 or 5 rounds then had dinner at K'wa. It's Tapas style with a menu that is separated region. I got Sashimi (from the Tokyo section) and Lobster ravioli from the Italy section. After dinner we went back out to the Tiki bar, just in time for the nightly fireworks. The view was spectacular and better yet, we had drinks and no kids or their parent's shoulders pushing and shoving us! The only drawback was we could not see the low flying stuff around the castle, nor could we hear the soundtrack. We planned on seeing them in the park the next night, but for now we were WAY happy with our hotel choice. Hit the hot-tub for an hour or so then hit the hay for the night. Unlike a lot of places, it was a 24-hour pool and hot tub. Didn't sleep very well. Didn't put in ear plugs, thinkng I wouldn't need them, but the combo of anticipation for the park, my legs aching and the freeway noise pretty much left me with about 2 hours worth of sleep.

Our plan was to hit the E-tickets and the rides with annoying lines first thing, all commando style. Then after lunch, relax for the rest of the trip and just take things as they came. Headed right over to Space Mountain. The Ghost Mountain Halloween overlay was really cool and I look forward to other overlays they can now do with the installed projectors. Walked right on. From there it was a short walk over to the Finding Nemo Submarines and probably the longest wait for the whole trip. Even with Magic Morning small crowds it took us about 35 minutes to get through this line. Took some nice pics while waiting. It was very cool being inside the subs again after so long. The Nemo stuff is fun and well done. It was totally worth a single 35 minute wait, but I'll not bother again unless its down to 10-15 minutes.

Those 2 rides were all we got to in the first hour. We went directly over to Fanatsyland to try and get in some dark rides before the lines got obnoxious. The Matterhorn line was already halfway around the mountain and it never let up. We skipped it the whole trip and they never opened the other side. Hit Alice In Wonderland after a short Aran smoke-break on the old Motorboat Cruise dock. Toad and Pan were already in the 45 minute range so were skipped. Oddly enough, Snow White had a 20 minute wait as well. I knew we could do better on that one so we blew it off too. Rode Pinocchio, then made out way down the Big Thunder Trail. We took some pictures of the Halloween decor around Big Thunder Ranch and the new BBQ place. Took a spin on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and only had to endure 1 or 2 condiment jokes. Got some really great pictures in line and on the ride itself. The ride did not kill us. Next up was Pirates, whose line looked really long but turned out to be a virtual walk-on. We hadn't seen the new Jack Sparrow additions here yet (Kel and I saw them in Florida in '07). They look great. The ride was in good shape, though it was missing the sword-fighter-shadows and Mr. Hairy-Leg. The people on our boat would not STFU. Kids asking question after question, or pointing out stuff as loudly as they could. Reason #273 for banning them from the park. And then the woman in front of us starts taking Flash pictures!! Worse, not only she she actually blind Aran with the flash, but the loudmouths behind us then start yelling at her, "NO FLASH PICTURES!!" Not sure what was worse, the rude bitch with her camera or the rude bitches behind us yelling at her. Did the traditional water-ride after Pirates then walked over to the Haunted Mansion. Oh my... there was a summertime-sized line! The Nightmare Before Christmas overlay is good but not worth waiting in any more than a 10 minute line. Luckily they had FastPass turned on. I never thought I'd ever have to FastPass HM. The FastPass machines are in a really cool little courtyard. Got FastPasses with a return time of 11:55 so really only a 30 minute wait, but we used that time to go check out The Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer's Island.

The island looks great and there's all sorts of new things I've never seen. They've added fun stuff to the caves which hardly smell like pee at all anymore! There's some fun stuff to play with over by the barrel bridge and lots of new photo-ops. My knees didn't like a lot of the climbing but it's all good. One of my mini-projects on this trip was to reproduce some of the old photos I took 10-20 years ago with a better camera and without having to use a scanner to put them online. With that in mind Kel and I had Aran snap a picture of us tha mimics a pic of us taken on the trip in 1988 when we decided to get married. Awwwwww. It came out great. I'm a bit grayer and my shades are way cooler now, but otherwise we look the same :-) We had a ball exploring. It's a shame the fort is no longer accessible. Took some great pics then went back to the rafts to get over to Mansion before our 1:00 lunch reservation. We walked in to the FastPass return line at exactly 12:37 (I love photo timestamps). We figured we had just enough time to ride, then get our butts over to the Bayou. One thing we did not anticipate: Once the strethcing room opened we were met with complete gridlock getting to the Doom Buggies. I've NEVER seen that before. Usually there's barely a line. So I spent the next 5 or 10 minutes staring at my watch convinced the Bayou would call our name once then cancel our reservation for not being there. Well things turned out fine afterall, but I did have to walk briskly, with sore knees, to get there by 1:00. Made it with a minute to spare. Kel and Aran were mostly right behind me. Aran was getting sore feet and legs just from the trip itself and was begining to slow down. He unfortunately never quite recovered and his feet got worse and worse until the last day when he could hardly move. I was lucky in that I knew my knees were getting better as long as I didn't run. Standing still they felt fine. By Wednesday I was mostly recovered from the Marathon.

It had been 8 years since our last meal at the Blue Bayou. It's still the best place in the park. The prices sure are a shocker though. I go out to nicer places nowadays so I rarely get sticker shock, but damn. Thank goodness they don't serve wine or I'd be totally broke after only 5 hours at the park :-). I eat a bit differently than the last time I was here as well. I eat a bit more healthily. Low fat, low salt, low quantities, lots of greens etc. So instead of ordering a Monte Cristo (God's Sandwich) and devouring it, I order one, and Kel ordered the vegetarian plate (A portobello mushroom and couscous dish). I ate half the MC then gave the rest to Kel who gave me half ohers.... Well best laid plans and all... she could barely finish half of the half... So I foolishly ate the last quarter. Well that meal was really all we needed for the rest of the day. Kel and I shared a vegetarian-chili at about 7:30, but that was it. Aran had "the best salmon he's ever had". We did not get a waterside table (didn't bother asking, been there-done-that, let someone else enjoy it), but we were in the 2nd row which is almost as good. Just love that place. Even without alcohol our bill was over a hundred bucks for 3 of us :-).

So after lunch, just after 2:00 we plopped our overfull bodies down onto the Railroad, for a nice quiet sit-sown trip around the Magic Kingdom and through the Grand Canyon and Primeval World. New and updated rides are fun but the ones that never (or barely) change are nice too. The conductor announced at that time that the park's hours had been extended to 9:00pm. Uh Oh. That can only mean the crowds were heavier than they thought. Ugh. It was starting to get warm, which was nice because the forecast said a high of 74, but by the time we got off the train in Frontierland (well technically New Orleans Square) it was at least 80. I thought we'd likely skip Splash Mountain on this trip due to the weather and how far away our hotel and a change of clothes were. But my 2 trip-mates were up for it so I popped over for FastPasses while Aran paused for a smoke at the Smokin' Dock. Unlike Haunted Mansion, I will NOT ride this ride without a FastPass. Annoyingly long line. Kel said to skip it if the return time was for after 3:00, but luck was with me and the return time was 2:55. Score! Even better, we only had 20 minutes to wait, so, while Aran finished up, Kel and I checked out all the Nightmare googaws for sale at the cart next to the HM Exit. I like the new log configuration. I never liked sitting in other people's laps or vice-versa. Much better now. However it seems to be wetter. We got VERY soaked. There was no way around it. We HAD to go back to the hotel to dry our clothes.

We spent about an hour back at the hotel. I changed into shorts. Aran and I went down to the tiki bar for a drink while Kel used the room's iron to dry her jeans. She joined us and got a drink. It started to get a little breezy so I changed my mind about the shorts and instead went up and took the iron to my jeans as well. We got back on the road at about 6:15. Getting to Main Street at 6:45, we saw the crowds had swelled a bit. When we reached the hub we saw that folks were staking out Fireworks spots already! Were they nuts? Was it that great a show? For "Remember" in 2005, we staked out a spot fairly early and it was miserable. Not as miserable as the times we've sat for hours waiting for Fantasmic, but both of those shows were/are top-notch not-to-be missed. After Remember we were then virtually trapped with thousands of other people hip-to-hip in a crush of unwashed masses. I'd heard the Halloween Screams show was pretty good but at only 12 minutes, not worth it to me to wait for hours for. I resigned myself to seeing it from Frontierland or not at all. I will not subject myself to the crowds on Main Street or the Hub for any show ever again. Life's too short and I had a video of the show waiting on my laptop should I want. So off to Adventureland we went and it was pretty mellow. The Jungle Cruise had a 10 minute wait so we got in line. Our skipper was pretty good. The girl-skippers are just as good as the boy-skippers frankly. Actually this one was better than the boy-skipper we had 2 days later, but he was obviously new. After the JC we tried to get a skewer at the Bengal BBQ but it closed right as we were about to get in line. At 7:00 with the park being open another 2 hours??? Sheesh. River Belle Terrace was closed too! Dang. We weren't starving but we wanted a nibble. Saw that the Fowlers Harbor Fish Shack place was open so while Aran had a smoke on the dock, Kel and I got the chili bowl to share. It was warm and pretty good in a canned chili sorta way. Frontierland was beautiful, all sparkly lit. Took some so-so pics as we meandered our way over to the the Day-Of-The-Dead decor over in Zocalo Park. Also checked out the Ray Bradbury Tree, which was cool. Frontierland is so nice at night when there's no Fantasmic. So quiet and pretty. It was now 5 minutes to Fireworks.

As we were so close to the hub we decided to see if there was any chance of seeing the show with a minimum of hassle. Walked out there and almost immediatly got partially sucked into the one-way vortex leading around the hub and out Main Street. The one where they don't let you turn around or stop and before you know it you are 10 miles from where you want to be. I grabbed Kel before we were too far gone and we escaped back to Frontierland. Whew. Then we noticed the walkway over to Carnation Gardens was pretty empty and no Cast Members herding people away. So we went down there and had a so-so view with only 75 or 100 other people. Rather nice. We could not see the big fireworks shot off behind Disneyland but we could see the big balloon thing, and Zero flying and the fire effects as well as all the low fireworks around the Castle. So bascially we could see (and hear) all the stuff we missed from the hotel. Well the show is fine, but the music is a bit cheesy. It's got all the typical Villians stuff you'd expect, and some Nightmare Before X-Mas music which is cool, but way too much boy-band Grim Grinning Ghosts. So it all evened out as far as I'm concerned. Better yet, once the show was over we had a clear shot back to Frontierland.

We made our way behind Frontierland to Fantasyland (and the water-ride). Most of Fantasyland was roped off for the fireworks, with folks all waiting for it to reopen. They weren't saying WHEN it would re-open though so we kept going. We popped over to Tomorrowland and watched Space Mountain's light show. It was groaning. Very cool. We were getting alittle pooped so we started heading out (after a short shopping stop). Saw that Buzz had no line so since Aran had never been on it, we got in line. I can't remember my score but it wasn't too shabby. Fun ride but Midway Mania is much better, though I didn't know it at the time. :-). We made one last detour over to Pixie Hollow. I wanted to see the light show but everyone was tired and wanted to go back to the hotel, and I didn't know how long we'd have to wait for it. 15 minutes? Half hour? We waited for 10, got bored so down Main Street we headed. I think we stopped in a couple shops but I can't remember. While the merchandise has improved since the Pressler days, the stores still suffer for the "Same-Old-Shit" problem. Every store has the same stuff the one next door does, with only a few exceptions. Poking our heads in was usually enogh to confirm this so we could skip. Main Street looked great with all the lit up Jack-O-Lanterns, and the big Mickey one in Town Square was changing colors and stuff. Very cool. Left the park at about 9:00 and got back to the hotel by 9:30. Aran went down to the hot tub for a bath. Kel and I hit the hay (well after dumping the camera and uploading pics to Facebook etc. I remembered to put in ear plugs this time. Was so tired I fell right to sleep.

Wednesday Oct 7th 2009
We could sleep in a bit on this day as we planned to go to Disney's California Adventure (DCA) which was not scheduled to open until 10:00. There was no Magic Morning over at Disneyland so we figured they would put off opening the Esplanade until 9:00. We had a nice breakfast at K'Ya. I had Macadamia Nut Pancakes... well I had 75% of them. Very rich and could not finish them. I know: where's my Pod???? Got on the sidwalk about 8:45. The walk was getting a bit old but at least I was pretty much fully healed up from the half-marathon. Aran was a bit worse off unfortunately. Got to the bag-check about 9:10. The lines for Disneyland were huge but DCA's were nice and short. An odd thing happened in line while we were waiting for the park to open. Some kids and their mother started talking to us, mostly about Kel's pins. The kids were actually cool (I'd say the girl was maybe 9 or 10 and her little brother no more than 7 or 8), not annoying, nice, intelligent and interesting. Their Mom was cool too. She convinced me we should probably make our way over to Toy Story Midway Mania a little faster than I had planned and it was a good idea. Main gates opened at 9:30 and we made a beeline to Soarin', where we got FastPasses for later. We walked from there through the Golden State area to where they had the rope set up to keep us out of the rest of the park until main opening at 10:00. We were right there before the entrance to the Grizzly River Run. The family from the line outside joined us and Kel continued her pin conversation with the kids. At 10:00 they let us in and the whole lot of us surged on over to Midway Mania way out on the other side of the park.

Toy Story Midway Mania is a pretty unique ride. It resembles the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster in that you shoot stuff, but otherwise it's way different. The Toys have set up a carnival midway and with your pull-string cannon, you can play the games of skill. All in great 3d and all virtual. You shoot pies, darts at balloons, eggs at farm animals, dishes etc. Hilarious Toy Story characters cheer you on. You move from booth to booth so you don't get bored at all. If there is a delay moving on, you get to continue shooting (with no score) just to practice, and to distract you from just sitting. We waited in line for about 15 minutes and were there early. The line was hella worse when we got through and it has no FastPass. If it did we definitely would have ridden it again. Alas not in the stars. The lines never did go down. At 10:30 we got in line for Califrnia Screamin', the big coaster. 10 minute line. Great ride but not much to say about it. It's a nice smooth fast coaster. Done with Paradise Pier, we then made our way back toward Condor Flats. They removed the smoking section from the Merry-Go-Round area so Aran had to either go to the other end of Paradise Pier, near Mulholland Madness (we didn't want to do anything over there) or in the state park area, or back in Condor Flats. We opted to go there as we wanted to use our FastPasses on Soarin'. Paused for his smoke break and I walked around snapping pictures. You really need FastPass for Soarin' because the line is SOOOOO boring and you stand in one place a lot. Even with FastPass we stood in line for 15 minutes. The ride is very fun but not worth a 20 minute or more wait.

Meandered our way across the park to the Hollywood Blvd land of the park. Our ultimate goal was the Twilight Zone Tower Of Terror, but we were in no hurry. Took lots of photos. Got in to the lobby right at noon and were in an elevator by 10 after. Ride was 'fun' and Aran and Kel loved it. I'm not a big fan of drop rides but enjoyed it as much as I could. I do love the theming and decor. Aran loved the way the basement looked like many areas of the labs in Berkeley. There was not much cool ToT merchandise in the exit store. Just a lot of the SOS we'd seen in all the other stores. We paused over by the new-to-us Monsters Inc. ride while Aran had a smoke, then got in line for it. It was really fun.. A nicely done C-Ticket dark ride and much better than Superstar Limo which it replaced. By the time we exited it was about 12:45 so we needed to get over to the Wine Country Trattoria for our 1:00 lunch reservation.

This was an excellent lunch and while we did have wine, and a meal just as good as at the Bayou, it was cheaper. The weather was perfect for dining on the patio and the place is designed in such a way as to limit the them park noise so it was really a very pleasant meal. The service was great. We were surprised at the stingy wine-pour but the wine itself was good. I had an incredible Alfredo Lasagne which was much better than Kel's Meatball Sandwich. Aran had a huge salad. After lunch we went down to the nearby Blue Sky Cellar, where the Imagineers have set up previews of some of the new stuff being built at DCA. Very cool. For some reason we' missed this area of the park on our last 2 trips. It's quiet and really pretty. Off we went for a short break in the State Park Smoking section, where I got some nice shots, and then back over to Paradise Peir to take a spin on the Ferris Wheel or "Mickey's Fun Wheel". We were smart this time and chose the stationary cages rather than the frightening sliders. I wanted a photo platform and it paid off. Got lots of great shots of the construction going on as well as one of our hotel and the Matterhorn and stuff. After that we popped over to the Beer Garden area and while Aran and I enjoyed a brew, Kel got herself a marg. Kicked back there for awhile, then went in to the Flicks Fun Fair land. This land is awesome. You are the size of a bug and the bugs have set it all up as a carnival (sorta like Midway Mania). The rides are all kiddie rides so we didn't bother. We just took pictures and enjoyed the garden like ambiance. 3:45 rolled around once we left that area. The park was scheduled to close at 5:00 and there was a parade that was gonna start at 4:30, so we decided it was time to do our last bit of shopping before heading out. Aran got himself some cool flying gear in Condor Flats and we picked up a few gifts for folks in the Sunshine Plaza shops. We got the hell outta dodge right as the parade was starting.

We were gonna head over to Disneyland for the evening but wanted to shed our shopping, so popped in to the nearby lockers. They have lockers just to the left of the entrances to both parks and they are way improved from the old pop a token in and take the key lockers of yore. Way more expensive too. It was $7 for a small and $12 for a big, but that works for all day with full in and out privledges, which is very cool. We got a small one. You go to the control panel for the type of locker you want, put in your credit card and it spits out a receipt with your secret code for accessing your locker later. It tells you what locker, and the lock button on it blinks so you can find it. Put yer junk in and press the lock button. Come back later and type in your secret code, which unlocks your locker. If you press the button again you get to keep the locker. Otherwise leave it unlocked for the next person. Anyway, bags stowed, we walked across the Esplanade to Disneyland and got into line with everyone else that had just left DCA.

Main Street was packed with folks waiting for a parade, so we made haste to Adventureland. Our plan was very fluid, i.e. no real plans. All we wanted was to be on the Tomorrowland side of the park once the fireworks started, so we could play other there instead of the Frontierland side like the previous night. We had time though. Sauntered though Adventureland taking pics. Pretty empty which was nice. Everyone was out waiting for the parade it seemed. Pirates was a walk-on so we did. Once in our boat we saw one of the most irresponsible bit of parenting EVER and we hope she's still paying for it. 2 women with 2 kids get in the seats in front of us. One kid, who was no more than 4 years old, did NOT want to go. He was screaming and trying to get off the boat. His mother put him on the dock and told him to wait over by the castmemeber until she got back!!! Needless to say we were shocked and the kid proceeded to beg her not to leave him. So she reluctantly got off her ass and joined son on the dock, and we pulled away. She was actually going to leave her son with strangers so she could fucking ride Pirates??? Man parents should be required to have a license. Other than that the ride was fun and much quieter than the one the day before. After that we took a sunset cruise on the Mark Twain. Got some great pics from the top deck. Upon our return it was still light enough to get better pics of the Dia De Las Muertos Decorations in Frontierland. We slowly made our way from Frontierland, across the Hub to Tomorrowland, snapping pics all the while. Rode Star Tours, which has really not changed in 22 years (till next year). Other than Star Tours, the lines were starting to grow, and the crowds were starting to stake out fireworks spots for the 8:00 show (at 6:45!). We decided, after a little shopping, to head back to hotel and watch the fireworks from our balcony, rather than fight the crowds.

Grabbed our stuff from the locker, and began the long walk. Got back about 7:10 or so. Had a small dinner at K'Ya, then went back to the room and cracked open a bottle of wine. Went out to a good spot on the hotel balcony for the fireworks right before 8:00. waited for them unitl 8:10 then decided they must have been cancelled. Ha! Glad we didn't stay in the park. That tends to piss people off and pissed off crowds suck. Back to the room to upload some pics to Facebook. At 8:20: Boom! Fireworks were just late. Charged back outside and from up here we could actually see the fire effects and a lot of the low pyro around the castle. We could also see the flying Zero! Great spot. All that was missing was the cheesy music! Yay! Show went well with the wine. Spent the rest of the night relaxing and packing, since we were checking out in the morning.

Thursday Oct 8th 2009 After another awesome breakfast at K'Ya, we checked out of the hotel. No probs. Love this place. Asked the concierge desk to store our bags and he ordered a cab to pick us up in the lobby at 4:30 for our 7:00 flight home. A little early but I was worried about LA traffic. One little problem with the hotel and they need to fix this... They do not have room safes and only have 1 safe-deposit box that my laptop would fit in. It was a tiny hassle to have to have them lock it up every day and then let me have it back every night. Well even worse was that I was not allowed to have the safe-deposit box after checking out. Granted I'd not have had a room safe either. Welp that meant the laptop was coming to the park with me and would hopefully fit in a locker there. Next time gotta bring a smaller laptop. Oh well. It did fit but we needed to get the more expensive $12 locker. I also had a Brain Fart. I knew that Disnelyand was opening earlier, at 9:00, on this morning from staring at calendars for a month, but for some reason convinced myself they opened at 10:00. So we got to the main gate at 9:30, an hour after they opened Main Street. And you know what.. it was really nice not having to wait in line for the park to open. We walked right in, and the park wasn't very crowded at all. We'd made up a list the night before of stuff we'd not done yet that we didn't want to miss and began working off of that. Oh, plus getting more of my repro-shots. First up was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Longest I've had to wait for that ride in over a decade. Put it this way: the last time I waited as long as this (20 minutes btw) we spent part of the time hoping no jokers would spit on us from the Death Buckets above. Ride was fun as usual and got a great picture that I've gotten twice before on other trips, of Kel driving and Aran scared. Next on the list was Peter Pan, but at 9:45am the line was already at the 45 minute mark. Sorry to say it and the Materhorn were completely skipped this trip due to line-age. Checked Snow white off of our list instead, then made our way back to ToonTown.

We'd not been in ToonTown at all the previous days. The Roger Rabbit ride had a really long line that was not moving, and the FastPass Machines were turned off, though not covered. We waited for about 5 minutes until all of a sudden the FastPass machines and signs came to life. Ran right over and got us 3, then proceeded to play around in the rest of ToonTown. Our return time was anytime after 10:55. Took pics. We noticed a long line for Minnie's House which was weird because Mickey's House usually has the line. Then we saw that Minnie was just inside, with a photo op. Mickey's looked empty so we went in. I hadn't been through in awhile and I was due to have my pic taken with the Mouse so what the hell. The movie barn holding area was mostly full and we saw 2 full cycles of the distracto-films before getting in to see Mickey. Man they just moved us right along too. "Give me you camera and I'll take a picture, ok now exit through those doors good bye". Well I got my picture, and my rabbit ears thankyouverymuch Aran :-). It was now about 11:0 so off to use our Roger Rabbit CarToon Spin FastPasses. Actually got a couple of cool pics of us on the ride. That pretty much capped off our visit to ToonTown. Crossed off of our list. Next up: Monorail!

Unfortunately when we got to the entrance there was a Castmember there blocking the way. The Monorail was closed and we should try back in an hour. D'oh! OK so next on the list was to finally check out Innoventions. We'd avoided it because we hate the Florida version but I'd heard the House of the Million Flatscreens.. er.. Future, was sorta cool. So we waited in line for 5 or 10 minutes, while the building slowly turned. An entrance came into range and we were herded into the door area. There we watched a short video into starring "Tom Morrow" that was pretty lame but fantastic compared to what we had in store. Once they let us in we were led to a cheesy fake game show set where 3 poor little kids were volunteered into being contestants on a stupid ABC trivia game. It was an uber-lame 15 minute commercial for ABC and was such a waste of our time it pissed us off. Once that was done they made us stand at the House Of The Future's front door and listen to an actor explain that the Elias family (oh clever) was celebrating the kid's soccer game and we were invited to check out the house (reminding us it has no bathrooms). FINALLY they let us in to see the damned thing. Yup it was lame too. One big commercial for Microsoft and whoever made the flat panels. Everything could be controlled by touch screens. Even stuff that was easier to do by hand, like raising the blinds. Oy. I want my 45 minutes back! Went upstairs and poked around the various trade show exhibits but mostly were just looking for the exit. I forgive It's A Small World. There's an all-new Grand Lame Attraction at Disneyland and it is Innoventions. Avoid it.

After escaping that, we went over to see if the Monorail was open yet and hooray it was! The new Mark VII trains are very cool looking. We forgot to ride them at night to see the interior lighting in all of its glory but the ride during the day was still fun. Love the seating arrangement too. Makes staring out the windows easier. The back cockpit area was taken over by a couple who were getting married. Lots of photographers etc. They got off at the hotel. We sauntered over toward the Star Traders so Kel could by her shirt without the big crowd that inundated the place the night before. We then made our way over to New Orleans Square for lunch. Aran wasn't hungry so he went off to the Smokin' Dock while Kel and I put our names in for a table at Cafe Orleans. Not bad, only a 5 minute wait. Service started out great and the food was fantastic. I had a Seafood Crepe and Kel had the Gumbo Crepe. Our server was subbing for someone who was at lunch and once she returned and took us back the service went downhill a little. On a whim we decided to have dessert, sharing some Mickey-shaped beignets. It took her 15 minutes to bring them and another 15 to bring the check. We'd ordered and eaten our main meal in less time. Met Aran about 10 minutes later than we'd planned but we got him a beignet so he forgave us. Not much left on our list and we wanted to be out of the park by 3:30. We rode the Winnie The Pooh which is fun even though it's nowhere near as good as Tokyo's. The only thing left on the list (we'd crossed off the Materhorn and Peter Pan due to the lines) was a stop in the Disney Gallery to buy a miniature. It was about 2:40 when we were passing through Adventureland. A Jungle Cruise castmember was standing outside the entrance inviting folks in because there was less than a 5 minute wait. Score. In we went and had a pretty good day-time cruise. The skipper was pretty new (I saw his cheat sheet) but he did pretty well. I was able to get some nice pics. We usually ride at night because the skippers tend to be a little bit more crazy so I rarely can get good pictures.

Made a quick stop in the Bazaar so Aran could buy a snake for his niece, then got out to Main Street at about 3:00. Just about all of the Main Street vehicles were out and about. Went in to the new Disney Gallery in the old BofA building. We'd already checked it out earlier and at that time I'd seen a collectible miniature I could actually afford. I waited 24 hours before deciding to actually buy it though. They have really nice models of all the buildings on Main Street, and the Castle and some of the rides etc. Really nicely done but they also run several hundred bucks each. The Castle itself is like $350. Well I found the old Marquee that used to be on Harbor and it was only $60!. Not only that but even in the box it fit in my carry-on. It lights up too. So that was my big purchase for the trip besides a t-shirt. Did pretty well. After buying that we left the park, pausing for a moment in front of the floral Mickey for a picture. Left at 10 after 3. Went over a snagged our laptop and stuff from the locker while giving Aran a head start on the walk back to the hotel. He did pretty well. We caught up with him about 200 feet from the hotel.

Leaving Disneyland is usually really depressing for me but maybe I'm finally growing up, because I was actually looking forward to getting home this time. We reclaimed our luggage and repacked some of it so we could free up room in our carry-ons. Had a last drink at the Tiki Bar then went out to meet our ride to the ariport at 4:30. It arrived right on time and it was a van, not a cab. It was also a pre-arranged fare so it was exactly $40 + tip. Not bad. John Wayne was where we got raped. We checked in no prob, and got through security in no time at all. Once in the gate area we had 90 minutes to kill. Our gate was the farthest one of course. The bar halfway down was full to capacity so we walked all the way back to the "food court" area. That bar was full too, so we put our name in for a table at the restaurant, even though we were still full from lunch. 10 minutes later and we got a huge table. The place is trying to be Encounter (at LAX). All retro sci-fi looking. However it's the Walmart version, despite the $10 beers and $18 mixed drinks!!! No prices on the menu of course. I had a Bloody Mary, Kel had a Cosmo and Aran a beer. We felt a little guilty about taking a table and just having drinks (remember we didn't know the prices for the drinks), so we ordered an appetizer to share, some Blue Cheese Sliders, which were pretty good. Eventually got our check (tell me WHY airport restaurants seem to always take forever to get you your checks? They do know we have planes to catch right???). Got out to our gate with about 5 minutes to spare before they started letting folks on. We were in the 2nd to last group so had plenty of time. Flight was uneventful. We had wine and I watched Countdown. We landed just as the Rachel Maddow Show was starting, d'oh! Aran headed out to the smoking area at SFO with Kel along so she could let me know where he was, while I went downstairs to baggage claim. Unlike SNA, which took forever to spit out our bags, SFO had ours on the carousel when I got there, a mere 10 minutes after getting off the plane. Grabbed them quickly then began running upstairs so as to catch Kel before she came down the other escalator. Yay, they were just getting to the smoking section when I caught them!. Once Aran was done with his smoke we popped over to the BART station just as our train was pulling in. Cool. Got right on and scored seats. One hour later we were in Concord where my car was just fine. Pulled into the driveway at home at about 9:30.